I mean, the way he was drawn...
exploded Cubist snooker table almost.
Head upholstered in green, stapled
holy and high-class to a cleric’s collar;
pride of every single pond in England.
Then all the balls burst over his body!
Cue-brown, breast-red, yolk-yellow
struck along the beak, to tap black;
chalk-cube-blue if his wings splay out.
Me old Ducker, you had better
watch out where those are shot.
I'm enjoying these commissioned bird poems. (Is this one of the commissioned poems?) Maybe it's rash to speak this early in the morning, I expect mallard as exploded snooker table to win some sort of prize for most creative metaphor of the day. The cleric's collar works too--they do have a slightly snooty look about them, don't they?
ReplyDeleteHoo boy, I just got the joke in the title. Brain kicking into gear.
ReplyDeleteHi! Thanks for the comments, yeah this is the second commissioned poem; sorry, I forgot to mention that. I'm glad you appreciated the metaphor and the punnery. I couldn't avoid it and for some reason had trouble writing about a Mallard duck any other way. Chances are it'll appear in a very different version eventually, as I've already started tweaking, but the important stuff will stay (that central metaphor, the puns etc.). Thanks again.
ReplyDeletelike the play on Me old Ducker, heh. but the dog - where's the retreiver? gotta work that in, keep wanting to see teeth...
ReplyDeleteAren't the teeth in there already? Heh. Never looked at a Mallard that way before and not sure I will look at one the same way again.
ReplyDelete